New schools: Zeno, Epicurus, Pyrrho

Abstract

Aristotle’s death in the year 322/1 B. C. can be regarded as the end of the classical era of Greek philosophical thought. But Athens did not cease to be the city of philosophers in the hellenistic era culminating in the rule of Alexander the Great (336–323), although it was no longer a city of politicians, artists and poets. Plato’s and Aristotle’s schools became for the hellenistic era the centres of attraction and their influence brought to Athens philosophers from various parts of the Greek world, some even to stay there permanently. Thus new centres of philosophic investigation sprang up in Athens besides the Academy and the Lyceum. Zeno of Citium in Cyprus founded his school in a painted porch, stoa poikile, which hence bore the name of the school of the Stoics, and in Athens also Epicurus of Samos settled permanently, whose disciples used to assemble in his famous garden.

An allusion to Plato’s name; Platistakos was the name of a certain kind of big fish.Google Scholar

3.

According to the translation by R. D. Hicks, Diogenes Laert. (London 1925). A parody of the verses of Homer’s Ilias, 3, 150 seq., portraying the old men of Troy sitting around king Priamus.Google Scholar

R. D. Hicks in his edition of Diogenes Laert. II, 120 seq. quotes Tarn’s assumption that in Diogenes Laertius’ narrative there is a fusion of two decrees, one voting a golden wreath to Zeno in his lifetime, and the second on his public funeral after his death.Google Scholar

The fragments of Epicurus’ treatise On Nature were found among the fragments of the Herculanean rolls; they were used by Wolfgang Schmid in the monograph Epikurs Kritik der platonischen Elementenlehre (Leipzig 1936).Google Scholar